Yesterday I was off work so I decided to get down to business and clean out parts of my room since I’ll be leaving in two months anyways. Friday’s task was the storage parts of my desk area (drawers, boxes, etc.) so I threw a lot of junk mail from colleges away. Today’s task was the closet. Now, my closet’s a walk-in and its pretty big, but most of that space is taken up by my STAR WARS collection and the rest is clothes that haven’t fit me for years.

So I put on a John Williams CD and got to work clearing away the trash that had accumulated over the years: old school papers, clothing tags, granola wrappers, popcorn bags (hey, I said it was big, it’s basically bigger than my room so I go in there to read or watch movies). Then came the clothes. I had all sorts of clothes that I hadn’t worn since Jr. High and I knew I wouldn’t be able to wear again. As the pile of clothes designated to go to my little sister grew bigger I started to feel bad for her. I’m the oldest of four, but over half of my clothes are hand-me-downs from friends, my mom, aunt or gramma. Elisabeth goes shopping more than I do, but she still has a lot of hand-me-downs too. I decided to get all the clothes together and set up shop to let her go “shopping” so it wouldn’t be like “Here’s a pile of clothes you have to wear and there’s enough here that you’ll never have to go shopping again.” Instead, I took our guest bedroom and transformed it into “Great Deals!” the store that has it all! Here’s how that went:

I tidied up her room and left her a coupon for the store’s grand opening

As she walked into the room, she saw this sign I made with a small whiteboard and some markers

All skirts and dress shirts were hung up on a rolling rack with night clothes in stacks next to it

Across from that was a table with pants and t-shirts and shoes underneath

I even put out some “jewelry” next to the register

She really enjoyed the experience and said she’d probably come back tomorrow and see if there was anything else she wanted!

•Seriously?! Get yourself a job! Support the economy! Read a book! No, WRITE a book! Just not about strawberries…

•Which is better…

•…Hello Kitty?…

•… or Grumpy Cat?

•So the other day I was playing Twister and I had to take a minute to figure which one was my right hand. I was informed by a Kindergartner that I “needed to get that figured out soon” and her Third-grade sister, trying to encourage me, said, “That’s okay, I’m going into fourth grade and sometimes I have those problems too.” Well girls, we aren’t the only ones!

Well, I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive me for not keeping this thing up to date. You see, I’ve been working or visiting colleges nearly everyday and I don’t have much time for fun on the computer, so I haven’t been on the lookout for cool stuffs. If you have any suggestions on cool stuff I can put on the blog, don’t hesitate to comment below, email me, or tweet me!

Last night I was trying to decide which smartphone I should buy (I currently have an orange flip phone) and I thought to myself “If you’re gonna have a smart phone, you’d better get an account on Instagram since that’s what all the cool people do.” Well I took our family ipod and downloaded Instagram and set up an account. I took a profile pic or two and followed a few people I knew and left it. This morning I started thinking about my social media past: I joined Facebook in November of 2011, so I haven’t been on it very long; then I started this blog at the beginning of this year; joined Twitter and flickr in March and then just joined Instagram yesterday. So I’m finally “with it.” Speaking of “with it,” I began thinking about other things that I’ve done for a long time and that are just now becoming cool. Wait a minute, that sounds like something hipsters say…

So I took a few minutes to see what the good old internet says about hipsters:

1. hip·ster – A person who follows the latest trends and fashions.

uhoh, not looking good..

When I looked around elsewhere (Pinterest, etc.) I found this phrase coming up again and again “…before it was cool…” Like “I read that book before it was cool.” Now this applies directly to me. I remember being made fun of because I read books all the time. I read nearly every classic book by the time I was in 6th grade (I didn’t go to preschool but was reading young adult level books by 1st grade and read Ben Hur in 5th grade) and almost completely ran out of stuff to read by 9th grade because I don’t like romance novels. Anyways, now I see people who used to make fun of me reading stuff like Inkheart and Les Misérables. Granted, it’s probably because of the movies, but still, it’s interesting how that suddenly became “cool.”

I looked at hipster on Urban Dictionary (which I don’t really recomend) but I kept finding phrases like “Hipsters reject the culturally-ignorant attitudes of mainstream consumers, and are often be seen wearing vintage and thrift store inspired fashions, tight-fitting jeans, old-school sneakers, and sometimes thick rimmed glasses.” (Thrift store? Check. Old-school sneakers? Check. Thick rimmed glasses? Check.) And “Despite misconceptions based on their aesthetic tastes, hipsters tend to be well educated and often have liberal arts degrees, or degrees in maths and sciences, which also require certain creative analytical thinking abilities. Consequently many hipsters tend to have jobs in the music, art, and fashion industries.” (Whelp, that is what I’m planning on…)

This is probably the biggest thing though: “many bands have become successful and known to mainstream audiences only because hipsters first found and listened to them as early-adopters of new culture.” For years I listened to several unknown music groups that have recently become very popular, some releasing their first CDs this year. Whereas before I never got a chance to talk much about them before, it seems everyone’s heard them now and they’re the favorite group of many of my friends. It’s been really cool watching their popularity grow until they’re almost world-famous. This though, is where my connection with hipster culture breaks.

The above phrase goes on to say “Once certain concepts of fashion and music have reached mainstream audiences, hipsters move on to something new and improved.” I get excited more people do what I’ve been doing. It just seems snobbish of me to suddenly stop liking something when everyone else starts liking it. Guess that means I’m not a hipster. Phew!